The museumpresents the 18th annual Winter Lights Lantern Festival on view now through January 16. The lanterns are displayed outside on Wade Oval, inside the museum, and for the first time, on the new east wing terrace. Inspired by cross-cultural ceremonial lighting traditions, the community arts festival is a seasonal museum celebration.

If the one constant in life is change it certainly holds true that at the Cleveland Museum of Art there is always something new to see, particularly now during the exciting expansion project. One of the museum’s goals is to create exhibitions and collections that are relevant and inspirational to its patrons and to do so in a way that makes each visit to the museum fresh and vibrant.

Former Cleveland Museum of Art curator Tom Hinson, who retired in December 2010, was honored with a Cleveland Arts Prize at a Gartner Auditorium ceremony on June 28. Hinson spent 38 years in the museum’s modern and contemporary art and photography departments.

Alicia Garr has been working at the Cleveland Museum of Art for 16 years, although she began her art-exploration here when she was only eight years old. She started working as a curatorial intern and has since moved on to work as Associate Director, Department of Interpretation. Her story is below.

In our latest curator conversation, we sat down with Jon Seydl, the Paul J. and Edith Ingalls Vignos, Jr., Curator of European Paintings and Sculpture (1500-1800,) to talk about his insights on the life and work of Artemisia Gentileschi. She was a pioneering artist in the 1600s and part of a dynamic father-daughter duo. She and her father, Orazio, will be the topic of his lecture on Sunday, March 13 @ 2:00 p.m. FREE!